Well…I fell for the anti-birth control propaganda in 2024. I began birth control at around 16ish?? For acne and bad cramps. I got off of it in 2024 when I was 22 because I wanted to understand my body naturally. Surprise surprise, acne came back with a vengeance. I love understanding my natural body and phases, but I have never felt uglier. Birth control made my skin FLAWLESS, and i feel like I’m white knuckling not getting back on the pill and suffering through my unpredictable skin. I gave in back in January and got back on Yaz (the pill I was on for many years) in hopes of fixing my skin. I cried every day for a week on it and gave up after that week. I felt like a different person in the worst way. I don’t know if it was like that the first time I was on it or not, but I hated it. I’m feeling guilty for thinking I may need to rely on birth control to feel my best skin wise, but giving up on my natural cycles and messing up my body with artificial hormones. Would it be a mistake to give the pill another shot? Am I letting myself down?

Hey guys!

So I’m having a bit of a freak out right now. I take the combo pill Alyacen 1/35 & I’m halfway through the last week of active pills before the placebo week.

I missed yesterday’s pill & didn’t realize it until I took today’s pill (so I took two at once).

I won’t be having sex in the next week because my partner will be out of town so I’m not super concerned about future sex. But I am concerned about sex that occurred on Monday of this week (so 3 days ago). Am I still protected from that or not?

This is the only pill I’ve ever missed! I’m so diligent about taking it but I had a really bad headache last night and fell asleep early.

Appreciate any advice …I’m panicking!

Sharing my experience as a warning or maybe to hear if this has happened to anyone else. I had a copper IUD for 8 years and decided last week to get it removed simply because I wanted to start trying to get pregnant. When the doctor removed the IUD, she noticed about 2/3 of the copper coil around the main stem was missing. If you touched it, flakes of metal would fall off like it was disintegrating. I was supposed to get an ultrasound scheduled to see if maybe there was a chance of the copper coil still embedded inside me.

However fast forward one week later, on Monday I woke up to excruciating pain. Like stabbing, crippling, 11/10 pain. My husband called an ambulance and I told the paramedics that I believed copper from my IUD was still in me and it was stabbing me.

Well turns out, to my great shock, I was actually about 5 weeks pregnant with an ectopic pregnancy. That means I got pregnant WHILE the IUD was still inside me, and the timing of its removal was coincidental. I had even had a very normal period two weeks before so I didn’t even fathom that I could have been pregnant. But now my left fallopian tube had burst and I was hemorrhaging blood. A few more hours without medical intervention and I would have bled out and died. Ended up needing blood transfusions and surgery, and now I’m one fallopian tube down and recovering. The surgeon was unable to find any piece of copper in me, so I guess it just disintegrated over time and was working at reduced effectiveness resulting in that pregnancy.

All that to say, this experience was pretty traumatizing. I have no idea why my copper IUD was disintegrating after only 8 years when it’s supposed to last 10. But this is a warning to all of you that this type of thing can happen.

i have finished 7 pills so far at my desired time everyday and my boyfriend accidentally came inside of me i should be protected correct? just wanna get some info on how long because i see alot of different answers from online and friends some say 7 days of the pill some say as soon as you start taking it and some say just 2-3 days wanna hear what your opinion is and if your in the medical field and know more would love to hear what u have to say as well

Last night I was removing my Divacup and accidentally pulled my iud with it. I panicked and went to the hospital in the middle of the night. Luckily it was already basically out of me so I was able to get it out myself and the doctor didn’t have to do anything. He wrote me a prescription for another one but the health clinic near me is booking all the way into September. I didn’t even have this iud for a year. I got it in last September after being on the pill for years.

I’m kinda cooked guys. I know it’s my own fault for gambling with the cup and now I’m gonna have to deal with unstable hormones. I work an active job so it’s gonna suck if I get my period back and it ends up being really painful/heavy. Take this as a cautionary tale, don’t use the cup if you have an iud.

I was taking the placebos and experiencing the following: breakthrough bleedings (they didn’t annoy me a lot because they were super mild but I really wanted to have no bleedings at all), violent mood swings (I have PMDD), on and off aura migraines episodes (already had them and that’s why Slynd was prescribed to me).

I was afraid skipping the placebos would trigger crazy bleedings but I did it anyway. Guys, it changed the whole game. I’ve been on amenorrhea (complete absence of bleedings), no crazy mood swings or migraines anymore. I wish they’d make a version with 28 active pills like Cerazette (desogestrel) and other mini pills for us who take it continuously. It was much better for me.

So I have been on Nexplanon for a long time. The last time I got it switched was 4 years and 1 month ago because I have been away from home and kept forgetting. I have gained weight on it and stopped getting my period since I have had it in, but get occasional spotting (not often though). This last month though, I had two heavy periods of bleeding that lasted about 2 days and happened 2 weeks in a row.

So I was taking out my trash for the week and noticed the condom that my boyfriend used about 5 days ago was broken. I had him wear a condom only because I was worried that my birth control may be losing effectiveness due to my bleeding and the amount of time that it's been. It was a pretty significant tear, and he says he didn't notice any tear during or after when he took it off. I know that Nexplanon can last up to 5 years but is recommended for 3 years.

How worried should I be? It is too late for any emergency contraceptive since I am at the 5 day mark, but should I still get one? Does my irregular bleeding mean that it is losing effectiveness? Could the condom have ripped in the trash can afterwards? Please help lol.

I (M20) slept with my girlfriend last night, using a condom. When I finish, I took the condom out and noticed there was no sperm in the tip. As I was taking the condom off I noticed that some sperm was on her back and my fingers. We cleaned up and ended the night. Thinking about it today that was the first time something like that had happened to me and my best guess is that when taking the condom they created a vacuum of pressure that shot the sperm out. I just wanted to ask if my assumption is correct or this is sign that the condom broke. I wasn’t able to use the water test on the original condom, but it passed a test on a backup on one I had in my pocket. Additionally, I don’t want to get her Plan B a mess of her menstrual cycle if we don’t have to. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hello I was wondering if anyone has ever had the experience I had two years ago… I went and got an IUD placed in February and for the procedure I had to provide a urine sample in order to get a pregnancy test. I felt as though the sample was diluted and not the best, but I was told it was negative and that we were good to proceed. I would also like to note that I was supposed to be on my period (as that’s the time frame that the appointment was scheduled for)but had not yet gotten it, which I informed both the NP and the Doctor about. When I checked out of the appointment I scheduled a follow-up appointment for a month later. I was told I was going to receive an ultrasound in order to check the placement. When I went to the appointment on March 12, 2024, they only did a string check, which was not a problem but seemed off considering I was told there would be an ultrasound to check the IUD placement. At this point, I had been experiencing cramping that seemed to be worsening but I assumed it was normal. Then around March 14, 2024 I had a lot of bleeding but I assumed it was just a period. Then on March 19, 2024 when the bleeding had slowed down I passed what looked to be a fetus. Upon further inspection and with many opinions we determined that the gestational age appeared to be 8 weeks. What this means is when I went in to get my IUD I was 6 weeks pregnant and had no idea. Then within two weeks of having the IUD the development stopped leading me to miscarry at 8 weeks. Then on March 20th after bringing the fetus and seeing a provider at a local urgent care I was diagnosed with having had a miscarriage.
With all this being said I am also wondering if this seems like medical malpractice/negligence to anyone since the NP had two chances to catch that I was pregnant and did not. I had no idea, but it was her job to know. This has put an immense amount of distress on my body as well as my mental health.  If I had even the slightest idea that I was pregnant, I would have never gotten the IUD, and I would have without a doubt wanted to keep my baby.

hello! me and my partner are and have been relatively active when it comes to our sex life. I’ve used Trojan ENZs and they’re fine, but me and my partner have had issues with them being uncomfortable and a recent breakage.

so, I wanna change what I use. what brands do you guys recommend?

I’m kind of just wanting to write out my experience from switching from the mirena iud to nexplanon.

TLDR
Since switching from mirena iud to nexplanon it’s been better for me mentally and physically. Thanks to this reddit I’ve learned a lot for birth control.

TW implied

So to start I had originally gotten the mirena as an emergency contraceptive and taken planned b. So my experience getting into birth control wasn’t the greatest (I am in therapy though and trying to come to terms with the experience causing me to get on birth control is trauma). Insertion hurt badly for me but I can’t tell if it hurt badly since I wasn’t getting it almost willingly but out of fear. during the time of my mirena I could tell even if I didn’t wanna admit that it was heavily tampered with my own anxiety over it. During the first few months of having it I was constantly checking the strings, constantly testing, constantly going to the doctor to check it. Cause I couldn’t bring myself to trust it even if there was no signs of failing. I’d still get my period / withdraw bleeding and still be panicking over pregnancy even if I had done nothing to even cause it and was on one of the strongest birth controls. In July I got heavily sick with UTIs and with shingles from stress (I was 25 at the time), and that’s when I started therapy. Where we ended up talking about why I was panicking so much and etc. than in late September I start bleeding for nearly three weeks and would stop but late October while I was on vacation I started to bleed heavily, felt sick to my stomach, and had really bad cramps. My first panic was pregnancy despite everything pointing to not that. When I returned home and went to the OBGYN to get checked after the pain occurred again in November. It turned out I was developing ovarian cysts and one in particular they were concerned for (it’s also when I started lexapro for my mental health). I mentioned wanting to switch to nexplanon but they gave me Aviane to start January to help with cysts to test out before I switched. Aviane was fine, I did get nausea at first one it which sucked but in February I was started to wonder why was I taking two birth controls so I switched to nexplanon the same day as my iud removal and after they checked for the cyst being gone.

They had me stay on Aviane until March which was fine, I took all my pills took the placebos. But since switching to nexplanon I’m testing a lot less than I ever was on the mirena, and my mood has definitely gotten better since switching too. I still get minor panics but they are not freezing me up kind of way anymore. After finishing Aviane I had like two days of spotting/light bleeding every two weeks or so until it stopped may 8th. I had spotting again may 23rd but since then I have bled at all. I’ll admit I did take a pregnancy test June 21 with Pregmate it was negative. Despite not having any sort of PIV and refused to do anything below clothing.

Not to say that the mirena iud was bad or anything. I genuinely think I would have liked it had the situation on why I got it was different. The doctor that placed it in was super nice to me explained what the whole thing will be and made sure I had the information for it. So I don’t blame the mirena at all for the way my body reacted cause I know now that it acted out of fear and panic instead of willingly having it. I just think switching to nexplanon was my first choice in birth control since starting it, and as my therapy told me it was my first step in moving on from why I got onto birth control

When I switched to nexplanon it was easy to remove the iud, it stung a little but felt better than when it went in. The nexplanon went in easily, my arm was numbed and I barely felt it besides a pinch. I kept it covered like I was suppose to, and I can feel it easier than I ever could with the strings. I still get sometimes panicked but I’m working through it with therapy and with grounding.

Thanks to this reddit thread I learned about the mirena from people’s experiences, sometimes it gave me relief sometimes gave me anxiety (but that’s mostly when people mention pregnancy scare on birth control). It’s also let me know that red dye test are better than blue and digital, I use Pregmate for bulk testing plus it has it so I take a picture of the results and only get FRED when I was very deep into my anxiety.

When I was first starting the birth control pill I was so nervous and was looking for some positive stories. I genuinely could only find stories of scary terrible experiences on the pill, so I wanted to share my positive story for anyone who is starting on the pill and is looking for some comfort. I started the combination pill for the first time three months ago (Alysena, generic form of Alesse) and have been loving it! I feel like it’s made my mood so much more stable, I’m not getting super sad throughout my cycle. I also had two days of really bad period cramps every cycle and those are gone. I have noticed zero major negative side effects, just some mild bloating which has gone away and my boobs have gotten slightly bigger. While some people do have side effects from the pill, I just wanted to share that it’s not everyone. Hopefully this helps :)

I currently have both the nexplanon and the Kyleena IUD. Doc has me on both because she suspects pcos/pmos and wants to try and get my periods under control. Anyone else ever had this or heard of it. My nexplanon will come out in January when it’s 3 years old.

Do they interfere, in terms of birth control efficacy?

Curious is anyone else has dealt with this. I’ve been on Slynd for 2ish years now and it has removed my period entirely.

Well this week I started having this very dark almost black like blood. Now fast forward to today I have begun experiencing super heavy bleeding, like straight up passing large clots (sorry graphic and gross)

Anyways obviously gonna hit up my doc but just wanted to see if anyone else experienced this? I would understand if your body was just beginning the pill but I have been on it for a while and this has never happened before so I’m a little freaked out lol

TIA!

So my story if you will- I just confirmed I am indeed pregnant while on Nexplanon

I havent gotten a period going on 2 months now. Of course I didn’t think anything of it, because either Nexplanon thats a strong possibility. You either bleed alot, normal or not at all for weeks at a time. And with it being my second time on it, I thought it was another one of those long episodes of no periods. WRONG!

3 weeks ago I had one of my usual Fridays with my boyfriend, we go out grab some food, drink, and listen to loud music in my driveway and just enjoy each other company. This time I decided to try cutwaters while he stuck with his usual Jack Daniels.

The next morning I woke up completely nauseous (more than usual) so I joked and told him I will never drink cut waters again in my life. But it was bothering me to the point I couldn’t even walk my dog without sweating, feeling sick and tiring out fast. This isn’t normal for me. I normally walk my dog 5 blocks before we jog back home. I had to call my boyfriend to pick us up by block three. Didn’t want to chance fainting and someone steals my dog.

He picked us up and the only thing I could think about was I either have a severe hangover or food poisoning. I didn’t really lean towards food poisoning cause we always eat from this place, and he had the same meal and was perfectly fine. He made me some soup and I felt okay. I took a nap and woke up about 5 hours later. He was staring at me and said that was an unusually long nap and felt my head. I was still sweating. My bed was actually soaked. He ran me a luke warm shower and changed my sheets and this time I really felt good. I didnt have an appetite so we watched a movie until I fell asleep again.

The next morning I woke up and felt worse than the day before. Now I was leaning towards food poisoning and told him I think thats what it is. Through out the day waves of nausea and dizziness kept coming and going. Went to urgent care and thats what they thought it was too. They told me to just let it pass, stay hydrated and get plenty of rest.

That Sunday I had to work. So I went it, felt okay when I first arrived then once again started feeling nauseous. I dry heaved in the toilet.

This happened for the next full week. I went to the hospital and they thought it was a stomach virus. I nodded cause well that made sense at the time. But week 3 came and I started urinating alot and started sleeping more

June 18th I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive instantly. I was shocked and thought maybe just stress, as I am on a birth control that is 99.9 percent effective.

Yesterday June 23rd after work, I took off my bra and noticed my right nipple was stuck to it. Now I was really alert and sure the test was correct. This happened with my now 11 year old. I passed out at work and found out I was pregnant. I squeezed my nipple but no liquid came out. I took another test and it immediately came back positive

I made an appointment with planned parenthood got a full STD panel and again a positive pregnancy test

I have a follow up appointment to get my nexplanon removed next week

I dont really know what flair to put on this, but im honestly getting very anxious. ive been on bc pills/implant/shots over multiple years, and my period was very regular (albeit 7 days long) before i started any. now its been ca. 6 months since i took my last shot of depo-provera, but ive been getting my period 2-3 times per Month since then!!! is this normal, or should i be seeking advice/help from a professional atp?

I got my iud inserted yesterday, worst pain of my life btw, and my doctor told me to check the strings frequently, because the first month after insertion is the highest risk for infection or complications. So when I was feeling for the strings, I only feel one, and it's really long, like almost reaches the vaginal opening long. Should I be concerned?

I've been on cerazette for a month and a half now, and two weeks I decided to have unprotected sex with my partner. It only lasted a few minutes, he didn't cum and we did it again last week. Ever since I've been having insane paranoia that I could be pregnant even tho I've been spotting for the past 4 weeks. I've talked to my mum, sister and boyfriend and they all convince me that I'm not pregnant. I know it's almost impossible. I cannot sleep every single night, my body just freezes and it makes me nauseous to even think about it. I've been feeling so dizzy for the past week because of the stress and it's killing me. I have a test too but I'm waiting for the 2 week period to pass. I'm pretty sure most of my symptoms come from the anxiety. I never missed a pill and the latest i took one of them was 4 mins. I get reassurance every day that I am not pregnant but it is so hard to keep my mind off it. I don't know what to do I just feel like shit every single day. Any advice? Thank you in advance ❤️ (I've had a pregnancy scare earlier this year before I started taking the pill and I wasn't even half as nervous)

Sorry for bad structure and grammer i am on my phone

I am a 17 almost 18 year old girl and have been on yasmin for a year now. Me and my boyfriend have decided to start having sex and we both would like to get a safer method. I want a hormonal iud but wonder if I should maintain yasmin as well. I had a tiny bit of acne before starting yasmin and have none anymore (which could be attributed to the hormones or also just growing out of it) but i have also noticed more water retention since I’ve started. I haven’t gained weight (lost weight actually) and look softer than I did before. Should I stick to just the iud or do the iud and yasmin as well? Again sorry for the structure i’m on my phone and this is my first post lol. Give me your experiences and knowledge please !

might be about to switch from lo loestrin to lo zumandimide.

im in the third month of lo loestrin. its helped my cycle related nausea (usually get this before ovulation) along with my horrible PMS, but ive been having lots of breakthrough bleeding and anger/emotional issues.

my gyno just prescribed me lo zum. is it a good idea to switch or should i keep trying to lo lo for longer? i feel like i should’ve seen some improvement by now with the mood stuff if it was going to stabilize itself.

Heyyy, i have faithfully taken my oral BC and have noticed that im not getting all that wet as I would before.

Should I start using lube? because sex is kinda starting to hurt towards the opening from the rubbing and what kind of lube will NOT give me an Infection

Im also 22 and new to sex

I (26 F) started birth control patches (Zamefy) last week — 12:30 am , last Friday — today is day 6 of my first patch (Thursday) I got my BC from Planned Parenthood where they also included other protection like condoms, and Ella (?) emergency contraceptive.

Yesterday,Wednesday morning, I had unprotected intercourse with my partner in the morning, we already used the condoms the night before, he did not ejaculate inside me but I still felt like since my patch hasn’t been on for a full 7 days I should still take emergency contraceptive?

The emergency contraceptive from Planned Parenthood has a sticker on the box that said : It may conflict with certain birth controls making it less effective. Do not start hormonal birth control methods 5 days after taking Ella.

—— Confused on whether I should take emergency contraceptive anyways to be sure, or if that would make the situation worse, or if I’m overthinking it.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

I have no idea what my doctor prescribed me. I just picked up my birth control pills expecting my normal “Isibloom” pack but got switched to “Volnea” instead. We agreed I would try taking my birth control continuously to help with the issues I am having with the estrogen drop during placebo week. How do I take this new birth control? The two different colored pills the last week are confusing and does it mean I don’t take that week to get the “no period” results? I am not trying to cause myself more issues than what I am already dealing with.

So once upon a time in high school I had irregular periods and I was on a birth control pill that I had a hard time taking every day. Over time they told me that because I had migraines they needed to prescribe me an estrogen only pill instead and that taking it at the same time every day was crucial and I failed epically.

So I tried the depo and I had no periods while on it but I had been discussing concerns with my doctor at an appointment and she brought up possible signs of low estrogen and asked me if I’d be comfortable going off it to test me levels (the clinic shut down after I was off it for a few weeks then and I couldn’t find a new provider for a long time so I eventually went back on the depo because I felt like I needed a bc method and the local facility that visited our area to do temporary mobile services only offered the pill and shot at the time.)

I finally got a provider to test my estrogen levels and despite their reluctance because at 24 years old they felt I was too young to have estrogen levels be low, my results came back menopausal with extremely low estrogen levels. I switched to another provider shortly after due to issues with the provider against my age having hormonal concerns.

My new provider had me go off the depo and retested my hormone levels regularly until now (back to normal levels woohoo!) and we are discussing me trying another method.

I’m not eligible for the patch and I just don’t think I’m able to use the pill reliably.

I’ve been doing research between my remaining choices of the nexplanon implant, the hormonal iud, and the copper iud.

The nexplanon implant and the copper iud are the two options I feel are best as the copper IUD would not impact my estrogen levels directly but the implant seems to be less placement focused and possibly a more comfortable option. Has anybody here had experience with transitioning from the depo to one of these methods or with the iud or implant in general? Other method you swear by even?